Dominance in Dogs (2012)

Having been involved with dogs for over 50 years I learned many years ago like in any other industry there is a word called ‘Progress’ The dog is not a Woolf in disguise, he is a different species.

I used to use pinch collars, choke chains, write and teach about the ‘Alpha’ in the pack. I wish I could destroy my past 4 books. Much progress has been made in the Canine World. We no longer shout and punish our pets. No point in rubbing a dogs face in pee or poo and saying ‘He know’s he did wrong’. NO he does not know he did wrong he only understood you were being aggressive and you were breaking down your relationship with your pet.

Some of my articles relating to dogs andpacks on my website www.thedogman.net go back twenty five years, and are being rewritten. Meanwhile I draw your attention to the fact that dogs are not pack animals ! It has been proven that many of their genes are not that of a pack animal. There are no pack rules, we raise dogs as we raise children, and our dogs should go to a school. We do not use the word pack as a group of dogs is a collection, – there is no hierarchy.

What Happened to the term the word alpha applied to wolves has had a long history. For many years books and articles about wolves have mentioned the alpha male and alpha female or the alpha pair.

Rather than viewing a wolf pack as a group of animals organized with a “top dog” that fought its way to the top, or a male-female pair of such aggressive wolves, science has come to understand that most wolf packs are merely family groups formed exactly the same way as human families are formed. That is, maturing male and female wolves from different packs disperse, travel around until they find each other and an area vacant of other wolves but with adequate prey, court, mate, and produce their own litter of pups.

When one puts a random group of any species together artificially, these animals will naturally compete with each other and eventually form a type of dominance hierarchy. In such cases, it is appropriate to refer to the top-ranking individuals as alphas, implying that they competed and fought to gain their position.

We do not have to fight and compete with our pets! Next time you go out with your pet try talking softlly, if you want your pet to sit, down, stay simply say it in a whisper, he has fantastic ear and will respond better, and hey what about some signals with your hands. In my schools I never allowd anyone to speak any commands, it works.